Barack X: Race and the Obama Presidency
Jelani Cobb, The New Yorker, October 8, 2012
There are no A-list rappers crafting themes in Obama’s honor, no catchy call-and-response phrases on par with “fired up and ready to go.” Yet here on Lenox Avenue is an Obama testimony in clashing motifs that underscores the complexity of the President’s current undertaking. A handful of men have been elected President and then become a symbol for an era, but very few beyond the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue have made the opposite transition. And it is for this reason that 2012 seems like so much anticlimax: a symbol ran for President four years ago; today a man is seeking to hold onto that position.Read more here…

Race and College Admissions, Facing a New Test
Adam Liptak, The New York Times, October 8, 2012
…the university she had her heart set on, the one her father and sister had attended, rejected her. “I was devastated,” she said, in her first news interview since she was turned down by the University of Texas at Austin four years ago.

Ms. [Abigail] Fisher, 22, who is white and recently graduated from Louisiana State University, says that her race was held against her, and the Supreme Court is to hear her case on Wednesday, bringing new attention to the combustible issue of the constitutionality of racial preferences in admissions decisions by public universities.Read more here…

“American Dad:” One of the Most Sophisticated Mainstream Shows on African American Culture
Lauren Mcwen, The Washington Post, October 8, 2012
…one cartoon manages to pull off jokes about race relations without resting on offensive laurels. That show is Fox’s “American Dad.” It’s
“American Dad” — with characters Steve Smith and Lisa Silver, above — represents an emerging sophistication in how mainstream shows treat African American culture. (Fox Broadcasting/AP) quietly becoming more popular among African Americans, and the seemless way the white characters reference black slang, music and expression represents an emerging sophistication in how mainstream shows treat African American culture. No longer a gag or appendage, black cultural references are a central part of “American Dad’s” DNA.Read more here…

Stopped and Frisked: “For Being a F****ing Mutt” (video)
Ross Tuttle, The Nation, October 8, 2012
Exclusive audio obtained by The Nation of a stop-and-frisk carried out by the New York Police Department freshly reveals the discriminatory and unprofessional way in which this controversial policy is being implemented on the city’s streets.

On June 3, 2011, three plainclothes New York City Police officers stopped a Harlem teenager named Alvin and two of the officers questioned and frisked him while the third remained in their unmarked car. Alvin secretly captured the interaction on his cell phone, and the resulting audio is one of the only known recordings of stop-and-frisk in action.Read more here…